This year's Across the Universe, directed by stage director Julie Taymor brought the Beatles music to a whole new audience by taking classic songs like "Hey Jude", "Girl", "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "It Won't Be Long", "All My Loving", "I've Just Seen a Face", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Come Together", "I Want You", "Helter Skelter", "Strawberry Fields", "Revolution", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "A Day in the Life", "Blackbird", "Don't Let Me Down", and of course, the title tune, "Across the Universe" among other classic Beatles tunes. Although sometimes films or shows based on a particular group's song output can be abominable (anyone remember 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?) in which Peter Frampton, the BeeGees and Steve Martin (!) performed cover versions of Beatles classics to the horror most audiences and a really pathetic return at the box office. True Beatles' fans regard this movie as an obscene misuse of Beatles' music, while non-fans and Disco aficionados might find it amusing or even good. However, Across the Universe seems to be a film that doesn't suck and doesn't pander to its audience (much), while it does serve to introduce the larvae of 30-somethings and Generation X parents to the immortal music of the Beatles. So, even if it's not a great film, it can't be all bad. The film, which uses very little dialog, uses classic Beatles songs to tell its thin story of the romance between Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), set against the political turmoil and violence of the 1960s. One of the hokier aspects of the film is that many of the characters have names like JoJo, Sadie, and Prudence that reference Beatles songs like "Dear Prudence" and "Sexy Sadie" to allow the director and screenwriters a cheap hook into the songs. As I said before, this is by no means a great film, but its primary virtue is that it takes these wonderful, timeless tunes and makes them accessible to a whole new audience, at the same time that it also gives them a small history lesson of the days back in the 60s when Flower Power ruled, political turmoil and assassinations reigned, the hippies promoted peace, the pigs were the bad guys, the Vietnam war raged, and the Beatles were the greatest rock ‘n roll band in the entire world. So if you love the Beatles, miss the 60s or just want a nostalgia fix, Across the Universe is one of 2007's films that is a must-see.